FOOTLIGHTS

By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

Published: September 15, 1999

NEWS

Why Not?

Are you ever too old to try something new? Not if you are Elliott Carter. The composer, who turned 90 last Dec. 11, has written his first opera, which will have its premiere tomorrow under the baton of Daniel Barenboim at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. Mr. Carter's one-act work, aptly titled ''What Next?'' will share a bill with the first Berlin performance of ''Von Heute auf Morgen,'' a one-act work by Schoenberg. This season at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden will also offer the premiere of ''The Last Supper,'' by the British composer Harrison Birtwistle next spring.

Future Shock

Film stars and entertainers dominated the choices when 30,000 people were asked by officials of Britain's Millennium Dome to select 50 people and 50 things for its National Identity Zone. The top choices among the people included Diana, Princess of Wales, and other members of the royal family; Sean Connery; Paul McCartney; Cliff Richard, and Elton John. Although such politicians as Prime Minister Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill drew support, the choices, intended to represent aspects of national character that Britain wants to carry forward into the next thousand years, dismayed some academics and historians who pointed out the scant representation of intellectuals, historical figures and writers. ''There is nothing here that I can see is the quintessence of the country,'' said Roy Strong, a historian, in assessing the list. ''It shows the decline in education.'' Things chosen for the zone included milkmen and the Mini, an automotive symbol of the swinging London of the 1960's.

Site to See

Florence comes to Providence, R.I., beginning on Saturday, with the opening of ''Splendors of Florence,'' a nine-day festival of art, crafts, cuisine and music. A highlight is an exhibition at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University of 10 16th- and 17th-century portraits of members of the Medici family from the Uffizi Gallery. Complementing the paintings will be prints from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. After the festival ends on Sept. 26, the exhibition will continue through Oct. 24.

The Radical

Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the death of George Washington (1732-1799), a major exhibition opening tomorrow at the Morgan Library will focus on his development from a loyal British subject to the leader of a revolution. Some 160 manuscripts, books, maps, works of art and personal artifacts will explore Washington's personal history as well as the revolutionary process that produced the modern republican nation. ''The Great Experiment'' runs through Jan. 9. LAWRENCE VAN GELDER